Page 4 of The Retreat
Three
A month had passed since Celeste’s retreat announcement, and Talia was no closer to solving her problem. Every idea was flawed.
She couldn’t ask a friend to play along, that would be too humiliating. The idea of admitting she had a pretend girlfriend could never be public knowledge.
She could tell everyone that the relationship had ended, but that was no good because she’d still be in the same bind as before. A social failure at a firm that prized romantic success. Plus, she remembered that joke from the meeting. ‘If she exists.’ Saying she broke up with Alex was too close to admitting she’d made her up.
She could tell the truth? What a hilarious idea.
There had to be a way around this. Talia pulled up her phone again. She quickly googledhire a fake girlfriendand scrolled through the results.
All of the ads were for ‘escorts’ who specialised in pretending to be your girlfriend for an event. Talia’s stomach churned. She wasn’t even comfortable googling this. No matter how much she needed a solution, she was certain this idea would backfire. She’d seen too many bank records during settlement meetings to be ignorant to the fact that things like this could bite you in the arse long after you’d forgotten you’d even done it.
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. Her thoughts shifted to the root of her problem, the reason she was so damn single. To the start of all her problems.
Flora.
Because Talia wasn’t single just because she was too busy—though that was true enough. She simply couldn’t get over why she was avoiding relationships in the first place. The reason was tied up with her most serious relationship, which was also her worst betrayal.
The wound wasn’t just about Flora. It wasn’t just about the fact that Flora had been the one person Talia had allowed herself to care about. It was that she had been the first person to teach her how deeply a heart could break when it was cracked open.
Talia couldn’t seem to come back from that knowledge. So here she was, about to look like a real arse at the very moment she needed to look like theoppositeof an arse. She needed to be more like… a shoulder. Something neutral and quietly competent.
What could she do? She couldn’t pull a pretend Alex from thin air.
She was stuck with the best of bad options. Pretend she’d broken up with Alex and take the hit. The thought didn’t sit well. But what choice did she have?
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t clean. But it was an answer. She could act heartbroken, maybe even rush off to the toilets a few times as though overcome with emotion.
Yes, maybe people would have some cynical thoughts on the ‘breakup.’ But who would ask her to prove Alex’s existence? No one would dig deeper into it, not at a company retreat. They’d probably think she was a little tragic. A little sad. And her ambitions would take a hit. But maybe she was good enough byherself. Maybe if she worked even harder, she could make up the deficit.
Maybe.
Talia stood up and paced her office, the weight of the decision settling on her chest. It wasn’t ideal. But it was the only option she had. A breakup story would have to be enough.
She grabbed her phone again to send the email to Celeste. She’d craft a story. She’d say the right words. It would be OK.
I’m sorry I can’t bring Alex to the retreat, she typed, pausing before she added the next line.We recently broke up. Our schedules were simply too tough to make it work.
It was plausible. The words were soft enough, sad enough, to sound real. She could hear the sympathy in Celeste’s voice already, feel the polite understanding that would follow. It was a believable story. She could sell it.
So why couldn’t she press send?
Because she knew this would cost her the promotion. It just would. She’d never get there at Monroe. She’d have to leave, start somewhere else, resetting the clock and everything she’d done to get to the big chair. Professionally, not having a girlfriend at this moment in time could set her back as much as a decade.
Her thumb hovered over the send button. She should just do it anyway. There was nothing else to be done. All she was doing was delaying the inevitable. An answer was not going to fall out of the sky.
But she couldn’t bring herself to hit send. Not yet.
Talia closed the email, the draft sitting in her inbox, incomplete, unresolved. She needed more time. But more time to do what?
A reminder beeped at her, and she realised she had a meeting in half an hour. This problem would have to wait.
***
Talia’s day was going from bad to stupid.
En route to her meeting, her heel had gotten stuck in a grate so thoroughly that she had to let the grate have it. She had to hop into a nearby budget shoe shop and grab the closest thing to classy she could find. So she’d arrived at her meeting late and poorly shod.
